A timeline is a mechanism for displaying a list of objects in chronological order. The timeline often has a graphic showing a line labeled with dates and corresponding objects along the line's length. Timelines are useful for visualizing a sequence of past or future events. The timeline generally has a scale that allows users to visual distinguish the time durations between timeline objects. Generally, the timeline has a linear scale where a unit of distance equals a set amount of time. The scale is often determined by the time duration between the timeline's objects. For example, a timeline that schematically depicts historical events for a particular century will have distance units that schematically represent a larger amount of time than a timeline of the same overall length that schematically represents events that occurred throughout a course of a day.
Timelines are also useful in project management. Such timelines may help a team understand a sequence of events and their relative timeframes to complete the project.